Feel to Heal: Negative Emotion Differentiation Promotes Medication Adherence in Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that results in lower quality of life. Medication adherence is important for reducing relapse, disease progression, and MS-related symptoms, particularly during the early stages of MS. However, adherence may be impacted by negative emotional states. Therefore, it is important to identify protective factors. Past research suggests that the ability to discriminate between negative emotional states, also known as negative emotion differentiation (NED), may be protective against enactment of maladaptive risk-related behaviors. However, less is known as to how NED may promote adaptive health behaviors such as medication adherence. Utilizing weekly diaries, we investigated whether NED moderates the association between negative affect and medication adherence rates across 58 weeks among patients (n = 27) newly diagnosed with MS (following McDonald criteria). Results revealed that NED significantly moderated the relationship between negative affect and medication adherence. Specifically, greater negative affect was associated with lower adherence only for individuals reporting low NED. However, this link disappeared for those reporting moderate to high NED. Building upon past research, our findings suggest that NED may promote adaptive health behaviors and have important clinical implications for the treatment and management of chronic illness.

Effects of a brief online emotion word learning task on negative emotion differentiation, emotional self-efficacy, and prospective distress: Preliminary findings

“…Similarly, among non-clinical samples, NED appears to be protective against binge drinking [ 24 ], aggression [ 25 ], and impulsive behaviors [ 26 ]. Notably, even in highly challenging contexts, NED appears protective against risk behaviors (e.g., substance use and binge-eating) during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 27 ] and may also facilitate adaptive health behaviors during chronic illness [ 28 , 29 ]. Taken together, these findings highlight ED as a potential transdiagnostic factor, with higher levels conferring clear psychological benefits, and lower levels contributing to the development and maintenance of a variety of psychological conditions.…”